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Overview

Smart ball warmly received

The International Stadium Yokohama was the venue for the
official presentation of a new smart ball and goal-line technology
on Thursday. The technology behind the revolutionary ball was
revealed at a media briefing chaired by Gunter Pfau, the head of
FIFA & UEFA Affairs at adidas and Christian Holzer, the
managing director of Cairos Technologies, and had the assembled
press nodding their heads in amazed approval.

Attracting all the attention at the entrance to the press room
was a cutaway model of the ball and a transparent version showing
the 12 suspension points that help keep the chip in the centre of
the ball.

"The goal of this technology is nothing more than to help
the players improve their performance," said Mr Pfau.
"It's easy to blame referees, but helping them is very
often a more delicate subject. We are trying to give them that
support by acting on the requirements of the International
[Football Association] Board, namely that the technology focuses
only on the goal line, that it is 100-per cent reliable, it
transmits the information to the referee immediately and that only
the match officials are informed. We have been working very hard
since the first tests conducted in Peru in 2005 [at the FIFA U-17
World Cup] and we are very satisfied with the results
today."

Unlike the initial technology, which was based on the
positioning of several sensors around the pitch, the new smart ball
involves far simpler logistics. "Very thin cables [two
millimetres in diameter] are laid in the ground at a depth of about
15-20 centimetres all the way around the goal," explained Mr
Holzer. "That creates a magnetic field that sends information
to the chip embedded in the ball. When the ball crosses the line,
the message 'Goal' appears on the watches of the four match
officials." Mr Holzer also added that the system takes just a
day to install.

All possible situations were envisaged during rigorous testing
of the technology. For example, no matter how hard the ball is
kicked, there is no way the chip can be damaged. Furthermore, the
fact that the message it sends is encrypted prevents it from being
interfered with. The smart ball is now being trialled at the FIFA
Club World Cup Japan 2007 and so far no hitches whatsoever have
been reported.

"When the teams arrived in Japan we gave 40 balls to each
side," continued Mr Holzer. "25 were standard balls and
15 contained the famous chip, some of them with the chip activated
and some not. The players couldn't tell the
difference."

Having tested the weight and bounce of the smart ball, FIFA has
given its approval to this latest technological development, and
the results of the practical tests conducted at Japan 2007 will be
passed on to the International Football Association Board for
consideration at its next meeting in March 2008.